Went out to some local second-hand markets this morning, a first in our new local area. Nothing unusual about that, since we go to markets a lot. But these were a little different, as they’re held on Sunday morning at the Blacktown Twin Drive-in. And…
One, I didn’t know they existed still, and two, I’m fairly sure I’ve never been to a drive-in movie anyway.
I don’t know what happened or why it happened, but drive-ins just seemed to die out. Somewhere in the 80s I think, they just started to disappear. I guess it was business as much as anything else — the move to shopping mall megaplexes and super-sound — but it’s odd that in a time where everything else was going drive-in or through as at least an option, it just stopped for movies. It seemed like a romantic thing from the 50s and 60s, but apparently it just went right out of fashion.
Yet the Blacktown Twin Drive-in still appears to be functioning. It looked kind of rundown, with the sound units looking pretty crap, but the main building was active and clean, there were posters for things like Wall-E, so it was very current, and two screens must mean some kind of audience. I just didn’t know it was there.
And as for why I never went to one… opportunity as much as anything else explains that, I guess. I remember a drive-in at Dundas when I was a kid, and that was kind of near home (but it closed down just as long ago), but unless the parents took me to one at the time, I never went there.
So drive-ins have remained something I see in other movies really, mostly very American, and mostly quite foreign. But now I realise there’s one just down the road, still active, and pretty accessible. Interesting. We’ll go to the markets again (Will just adored the jumping castle/slide thing), but the dirve-in movies?… maybe!